Thanks Crate and Barrel!

PINK! LIME! YELLOW! RED! I was drawn, like bee to pollen, not even aware I was moving in their direction until my eyeballs were filled with color. There were my sister and I in our school pictures. Her AUBURN hair poufed up on top of her head, wearing a TURQUOISE/LIME GREEN striped tank top. There I was, short hair, goofy smile, irregular teeth, wearing a HOT PINK/ORANGE striped tank top. I'm standing in my kitchen, TURQUOISE counters and high gloss white wallpaper with HUGE LIME GREEN and TURQUOISE poppies, their BLACK stems dancing on the walls. And a picture my brother made, his only piece of art, by melting and dripping TURQUOISE, LIME GREEN and BLACK crayons on a white canvas.

I realized I had been standing for a very long time staring, STARING, at hand towels. HOT PINK and ORANGE. LIME GREEN and TURQUOISE. I had gone to Crate and Barrel to find a specifically shaped iced tea glass as a prop and found myself back in Southfield, Michigan circa 1966 or 68.

And, right then, in the middle of crate and barrel, I really missed my mom. My sister and I got our love for color from her. I think, if she hadn't had kids to raise, a business to help run, she would have liked to have been an artist. She painted a little, a bullfighter on old barn wood. She could draw too. And she made silhouettes of us. She let me paint my bedroom BLUE, or was it blue from my brother? I know for sure she let me cut out big YELLOW daisies from wallpaper or contact paper, and glue them to the walls and up and over the ceiling.  Before that, when my sister and I shared a bedroom, we had RED shag carpeting. My grama lived with us, and she had PINK shag carpet. Our living room had GREEN Carpet.

This is a pastel I drew a Very long time ago... 1999. But, I see a thread that was clearly continuing. I had painted our bedroom PERSIMMON and put in PURPLE carpet. Thats a LIME GREEN polka dot chair I painted, and ORANGE silk for good measure. 

Here's a tiny section of my inspiration board, trying to motivate, prod, remember how to make Art again. One of these days I'm going to stop putting so much energy into "work" and get to Work.